Change Comes All At Once
by Mayhem21
Summary: Weirdmageddon is over and Stanford admits that some things have to change. Companion piece to "Change Comes Little by Little".


When Stanford steps back through the portal into Dimension 46'/, so many emotions are churning through him it's impossible to pick just one. The familiar sight and smell of the basement and knowledge that he's _home_ hit him first. An instant later, as he scans the room and sees his brother, indignation and frustration wash away those cheery feelings with cold, hard reality. But most of all, burning underneath everything else, is _rage_.

The portal had snapped open just as he was closing in on Bill Cipher, Quantum Destabilizer charged for the final, deadly shot. With Bill's cronies shrieking in excitement around him, Ford hadn't had time to consider taking aim at his former muse. No, the portal (so distinctive, unlike any of the others he'd passed through) had to be closed before any of the minions got through it.

It was a side benefit that he'd managed to jump through before the event horizon collapsed thanks to the application of his custom-made concussion grenades.

The lab on the other side of the portal is a wreck. In the back of his mind, Ford's mind starts spinning out theories, considering gravity anomalies, folds in space-time, or some kind of ripple effect.

The final flash of the portal behind him reflects off something gold and when he bends over, Ford can't help but extend his left hand, perfectly fitting the adornment on the front of the book. He doesn't hesitate to reclaim his lost property, tucking it away in the specially lined pocket of his overcoat. He'd packed away the journal documenting his travels before he'd returned to the Nightmare Dimension and the lack of weight and bulk at his leg had been, admittedly, somewhat distracting.

There are voices ahead of him, too muffled to hear so he pulls off his goggles and headwrap so he can hear better. Stan looms back into view, now standing, grinning like _he'd done something worth praise_.

The rage at missing Bill, at failing at his mission of thirty years floods him and Ford can't hold back the angry fist he slams into his brother's face.

Ever quick to anger, Stan lunges back at him but Ford has spent thirty years on the run and, for the first time ever, he bests his brother in a fight.

Then the voices return and to his horror, Ford realizes that there are _children_ in his lab. Stan looks annoyed but explains in a terse voice that they're Shermie's grandchildren (as though gives them the right to be in his _lab_ ) and Ford's mind . . . pauses.

Intellectually, he'd known things back home would continue on without him but when he'd pictured his family, he'd never really imagined kids. And if these were Shermie's grandchildren, then that meant- "I have a niece and nephew?"

The girl, Mabel, is sunny and cheerful and instantly accepting of him in a way that was rare in all the multiverse.

The boy, Dipper, reminds him of himself, and he's not only read his Gravity Falls journals but seems absolutely enthused by them. So much so that his excitement starts to get the better of him.

But he can't focus on family right now. He presses Stan, then the children, and so much comes tumbling out.

The US government is prowling around upstairs looking for him; he'd stolen Stanford's _name_. The conversation eventually turns into a quick rundown of everything leading up to this moment, going all the way back to their childhood in Glass Shard Beach and up to Stan's years of toil trying to reactivate the portal.

Nothing Ford hears justifies opening the portal and, once the agents have been mindwiped and sent away, he makes it clear to Stan that once the summer was over and the children gone, he would give back everything he'd taken from Ford.

 _(It didn't hurt to be chuckling with Stan one moment at their age and then to hear him cast Ford away in the next. Stan was in the wrong, like always, so how could it be painful?)_

 _(...and since when had his brother gotten so worn down that he couldn't even stand up straight anymore…)_

Ford isolates himself down in the basement once the crisis is over. Unsurprisingly, a tear in space-time has resulted from the portal being opened once more (although it is smaller than he had expected) and it takes hours to craft a vessel to contain it. Finally, he's able to retire to his dusty private study, which appears to be the only space Stan hadn't gotten his sticky paws on. There, in the dark with the door locked firmly behind him, he finally starts to relax.

First, he strips down. His all black garb had been useful for scamming the government agents but these clothes he'd obtain specifically for fighting Bill in the dark and hellish Nightmare Dimension. He bundles up the high-tech, damage resistant fabric and it quickly disappears back into his travel pack. Next, he uses a small cloth and some water from his canteen to wipe away the worst of the sweat and grime from the grueling fight. Finally, he digs out his lighter weight garments and dresses once more, uncomfortable even in private with his many scars on such open display.

It's with a sigh of relief that Ford sits back down at his desk and opens Journal 3. He thumbs through the pages, absently noting a section with much more childish scribbles, and once he finds the blank pages near the end, he settles down to write.

Writing and sketching have been a source of peace for him for as long as he can remember. The physical act of holding a pen and scratching out words and pictures anchored him to the real world while the words themselves helped him build structure around his constantly swirling thoughts.

Ford doesn't sleep the first night back. He spends what's left of the evening and most of the next day with his journal. It takes time for him to detail his return home and describe the horrific changes Stanley has forced upon his house. Then he needs to record his observations about Stanley, the children, and the employees of the fraudulent money-grabbing scheme his knucklehead of a brother had come up with.

As days pass, he does his best to honor the agreement he made with his brother. He avoids the children as best he can and works feverishly to dismantle the portal Bill had tricked him into building.

 _(The wiring beneath the panels seemed different than he remembered … but that was probably just the result of so much time passing and visiting dimensions that had been so very close to this one. For goodness' sake, most of Stan's "repairs" consisted of duct taping parts together!)_

In the end, however, the children worm their way into his heart. Dipper especially. Every time Ford looked at the young boy, all he could see (and hear) were how Mabel and Stan teased him, how isolated and different he was from other children.

A plan started to form in his mind, something he thought would be of benefit to Dipper and himself, and as they dove deeper into Crash Site Omega, Ford knew that what he'd learned of the boy were correct. The boy would flourish under his tutelage and together, they would unlock the secrets of Gravity Falls.

* * *

The days after Weirdmageddon were the worst of his entire life. It wasn't the too small couch he had ended up spending so many nights on or twitchy paranoia still screaming inside his head that they were all still in danger. It was the sight of Stanley, looking exhausted and frail in his armchair with Waddles the pig on one knee and Mabel's scrapbook on the other.

It was sitting with Stan and telling him all about their childhood, both the good and the bad, and having wait and see if the stories, pictures, or films would awaken the memories Ford had wiped from his mind.

It was having to explain, long after the children had gone to bed, that the ten years he'd been on his own might never come back because there was so little to spark the return of those memories.

Ford had made terrible mistakes in his life and Stanley was the one paying for them.

He'd always been selfish, thinking only of what made him different. Stan, however, had shaped his entire life around Ford. Everything from 'High Six?' to their dreams of sailing away on the Stan-o-War. And how had he repaid him? By tossing him aside the moment West Coast Tech was dangled in front of his face. He'd been so enraptured over what he could achieve, the greatness and fame he could earn, that he hadn't given a single thought to what he was preparing to leave behind. Or who. He'd never allowed Stan to be his own person. How could he have ever expected him to just jump right on board with abandoning everything they'd ever dreamed of?

With a soft sigh, Ford sat up and swung his feet back down onto the floor. If he wasn't going to sleep, he may as well do something useful.

For a moment, he considered drawing his rifle from underneath the couch and going on another patrol around the perimeter. The thought of being so far from Stan, however, sends an unpleasant twist through his stomach.

Instead, he slips up the stairs to continue investigating all the nooks and crannies Stan had used to store his things. Their parents had shipped him boxes and boxes of family history and childhood belongings once it became clear that their genius son wasn't returning to New Jersey. Once he'd received them, Ford hadn't even bothered making more than a cursory search through one or two. Instead, he shoved them all into the attic and got back to his research.

And there they remained until Stan took over the house. Unlike Ford, he seemed to have gone through everything he could get his hands on, and that meant mementos like their father's fez and banner of the Royal Order of the Holy Mackerel and their senior year high school yearbook were found and used. Other items had gone back into storage but there was a bit more order to them than before.

After several sleepless nights (and a twitchy day), Ford had dug through the entire first floor and the attic. There was only one space left and one he'd deliberately avoided until now: Stan's bedroom.

His brother had brushed off suggestions that he go sleep in a real bed, preferring instead of stay in his armchair. Unfortunately, this meant that no one had really been in there since the Shack had been repaired and no one had checked to see if there were things in it that could help Stan regain his memory.

Once Ford reached the door (it was covered it 'Keep Out' signs, several specifically mentioning Dipper), he took a deep breath and pushed the door open.

His initial search of the space didn't turn up too many surprises. There was a punching bag, boxing gloves, and random jewelry (likely stolen). There was a trunk with some oddly disturbing magazines on top _(Fully Clothed Women)_ which, if he knew Stan, was probably something being deployed against curious children … Ford cautiously dug underneath the top layer of magazines. Then quickly let them drop, snatching his hands away like he'd been burnt. Yup. Some things never changed.

The room was a mix of the Stan he knew and the one he didn't. The magazines and the knuckledusters were all familiar. The empty blister packs of prescription medications and well used textbooks, however- those belonged to a Stan he didn't know. The one that had lived alone for thirty years struggling to bring him back.

Frustrated, Ford stood still in the middle of the room, letting his eyes wander over the gloomy space. This had always been a dark room but now it just seemed oppressive. He couldn't imagine sleeping peacefully in here.

He took a deep breath, then another and closed his eyes. Stan had gotten … complicated with age. As a child, he'd worn his emotions on his sleeve and never bothered trying to hide anything from anyone (save for their parents, on occasion). Unfortunately, he'd spent most of his life far from the comfort of the family home where showing that kind of openness or weakness could get you hurt or killed.

Decades later, Stan had taken to concealing his true thoughts and feelings underneath layers of bluster and distraction. Before the kids had come along, Soos seemed to be the only person since his forcible relocation to Gravity Falls to achieve any kind of intimacy. And even then, Stan had kept Soos had arm's length even though he'd clearly come to think of him as family.

Bluster and distraction.

Ford opened his eyes and honed in on the ornate painting of himself Stan had hung over the bed. Hurrying over, Ford jumped up on the rickety brass frame and carefully took down the picture and put it on the floor. Unsurprisingly, there was an opening with an open box of random trinkets a little ways down from the slightly rusted nail the picture had hung on. But if his suspicions were right…

Knocking on the wood with a quick double-tap, Ford eventually found a portion of the wall that didn't sound quite right. It took several more minutes for him to find the hidden latch that opened the real secret panel. The panel only hinged part of the way open, preventing him from being able to easily peer inside. Deciding to go ahead and risk it, Ford stuck in a hand, fingers stretched and groping in the dark space.

What he withdraws from the concealed space (thankfully not booby trapped) are notebooks.

Once the cubbyhole is empty, Ford sits down on the bed to study this new puzzle. The notebooks are spiral bound, stitched, and glued together. They're all different sizes and shapes, some lined and others unlined. And the pages in each book are covered with Stan's dense handwriting.

Each notebook is evidence of Stan's unyielding dedication to Ford, of how he dedicated thirty years of his life to saving someone who only ever cast him aside and shunned him.

The contents of the notebooks are diverse, jumping from physics to engineering to biology and interspersed with random notes about life at the Shack and complains about the weather or the slow degradation of his brother's body.

There are pages and pages of angry diatribes aimed at Ford and bitter recriminations of himself. Stan poured his heart and soul into these notebooks and Ford suddenly feels as though he's been nothing but a horrible boat anchor on Stan's life, weighing him down and refusing to let him move on.

The more he pages through the notebooks, the more astonished Ford grows.

Stan had dug up his old college and grad school homework, working through his lecture notes and textbooks until he would have aced each course. He's dug into Fiddleford's specialty and taught himself about computers and machines. There are even entire notebooks devoted to studying biology and genetics and if Ford is reading the thoughts and notes scattered throughout the books, Stan had designed and built brand-new specialty components for the portal.

The final evidence that falls out of one of the notebooks, the pages that clinch a new theory growing in Ford's mind, is a thick set of papers taped and folded together. As he unfolds the pages of taped together construction paper, the old worn out tape pulls off some of the pages and Ford has to be careful not to cause worse tears.

What he's found is a hand-drawn diagram of the portal. It's larger and more detailed than anything he or Fiddleford even produced. The different types of components are labeled and color-coded and red marker has been used to circle different areas, noting issues and flaws in the design.

Years after falling through the portal, Ford had realized that the blueprints Bill had given him had been deliberately wrong. The demon had designed the portal to fail, aimed specifically at the Nightmare dimension so Bill and his minions would have an easy way into his dimension. Blinding by ambition and pride, Ford had ignored the problems in the design and refused to hear out any of his assistant's concerns.

Stan hadn't been fooled.

The diagram showcases each and every bug and defect and makes note of where to find the corrections he's designed.

A second set of drawings have been taped to the back of the diagram. And this work is entirely original.

Ford hadn't given any thought to how lucky he'd been to be so close to the portal when Stan opened it. He'd been back in the Nightmare Dimension, after all, and he assumed it had been blind luck that had given him a way home.

He really needed to stop underestimating his brother.

Stan hadn't just considered that Ford might not be in exactly the same place he'd emerged from the portal, he'd designed and built a component onto the portal to search for and find him.

Ford sat in silence for several minutes, carefully folding up the diagram and tucking it back into the notebook it had originally fallen out of. Then, he carefully stacked up the notebooks, largest on the bottom and smallest on the top.

He tried to stand, to take the notebooks downstairs but his legs weren't working. Slowly, his vision began to blur and the for the second time that week, tears began to leak from Ford's eyes.

Clutching the notebooks and journals to his chest with one arm, Ford buried his face in his free hand and cried. His wonderful, brilliant, amazing brother had given up everything for him. His future, his independence, and forty years of happiness.

The poison of their childhood, that Ford was the smart one and Stan the strong one, had prevented anyone, including Ford and and Stan, from realizing just how smart his younger brother was. Learning didn't come as easily to Stan as others but he was holding the proof that Stan was smarter than he was when he put his mind to it.

Fighting back the tears, Ford made a silent promise to himself. He didn't know how much time he and Stan had left but from this moment forward, everything would be different.


End file.
